January Conference Brings Future Teachers from Seven States to Holocaust Museum Houston

HOUSTON, TX (Jan. 18, 2010) – Twenty undergraduate and graduate Syracuse University students traveled to Houston this January to participate in a one-of-a-kind program that helps future educators learn how to teach their students about one of history’s darkest times, the Holocaust, and about its relevance to today’s world.

The students arrived Jan. 9 for six days of training as fellows of Holocaust Museum Houston’s fourth annual Spector/Warren Fellowship for Future Teachers, which is designed specifically for Syracuse students.

The nationally acclaimed fellowship provides intensive training and opportunities to hear from international experts on World War II history, as well as from Houston-area survivors of the Nazi atrocities of the Holocaust.

Their training included presentations by Dr. Alan Goldberg, emeritus professor at Syracuse; Dr. William F. Meinecke, education historian with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Dr. Mary Johnson, senior historian with Facing History and Ourselves; Dr. Elisa Macedo Dekaney, assistant professor of music education in the Setnor School of Music at Syracuse; Susan Shaw, director of education for the Anti-Defamation League; Mike Madden, a teacher in the Fort Bend Independent School District; Helen Colin, a Holocaust survivor; Nancy Patz, an artist and author of “Who Was The Woman Who Wore the Hat?”; Lawrence Siegel, composer of “Kaddish,” and Dr. Doris L. Bergen with the Department of History at the University of Toronto.

The students toured and studied the Museum’s permanent exhibit “Bearing Witness: A Community Remembers” and its current changing exhibits “A Blessing to One Another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People” and “BESA: Muslims Who Saved Jews During the Holocaust.”

The Spector/Warren Fellowship for Future Teachers, supported by The Solomon Spector Foundation, is designed to bring the lessons of the Holocaust into the classroom and is a major component of the Museum’s educational outreach for pre-service teachers.

“The Spector Warren Fellowship is an ideal setting to challenge beginning teachers to teach the lessons of the Holocaust. They spend the week learning with renowned Holocaust scholars and excellent educators. As they return to New York to begin the semester, they are changed human beings — ready to think more conceptually and contextually about this complex history,” said Dr. Mary Lee Webeck, the Museum’s director of education.

The fellows were selected through an application and review process. The 2010 fellows and their hometowns include:

Barre, VT: Elizabeth Charron

Canandaigua, NY: Catherine Frankel

Cleveland, OH: Carly Fox

Delmar, NY: Katie Rowan

Lauderhill, FL: Adrian Henry

Mantius, NY: Deborah Cunningham

Montclair, NJ: Sara Yablonsky

Mount Vernon, NY: Tyrone Shaw

New Paltz, NY: Nicole Ferrante

North Syracuse, NY: Rhiannon Berry

Orchard Park, NY: Kate Mankowski

Oswego, NY: Lindsay Roberts

Paterson, NJ: Mone’t Kendall

Syracuse, NY: Jimsak Daoreuang, Amanda Natale, Dana Reid

Tupper Lake, NY: Humphrey Brown

Valatie, NY: Alyssa Bell

Versailles, KY: Ellen Royse

Warren, PA: Crystal LaPoint

Holocaust Museum Houston is dedicated to educating people about the Holocaust, remembering the 6 million Jews and other innocent victims and honoring the survivors' legacy. Using the lessons of the Holocaust and other genocides, the Museum teaches the dangers of hatred, prejudice and apathy. Holocaust Museum Houston’s Morgan Family Center is free and open to the public and is located in Houston’s Museum District at 5401 Caroline St., Houston, TX 77004.

For more information about the Museum, call 713-942-8000 or visit www.hmh.org.

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Holocaust Museum Houston is an accredited member of the American Alliance of Museums.

The Laurie and Milton Boniuk Resource Center and Library is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday. The Library is closed Sundays.

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